By Mahoor Haya Shah

In the fanatic fall of 1947, as the subcontinent bled from its borders, Mahatma Gandhi stood before a restless Delhi and pointed quietly northward, and said: “I see a ray of hope in Kashmir.”

The country had been torn apart by communal riots. Trains arrived full of corpses, and refugee camps swelled with sorrow.

But Kashmir, largely untouched by the fury, offered a different image. Not of perfect peace, but of people still holding each other’s hands.

Back then, in the valley’s lanes and fields, Kashmiri Muslims and Pandits lived as families, rather than as neighbours. They borrowed salt from one another, celebrated weddings together, and mourned under shared roofs.

Faith did not sit on anyone’s sleeve. It sat quietly in the heart, like the snow on the Chinars: present, but not intrusive.

Even when things fell apart in the 1990s and fear hung in the air like smoke, many Kashmiri Muslims pleaded with their Pandit neighbours not to leave. Some Pandits did stay, and their Muslim neighbours stood by them, guarding their homes during the night, attending their affairs, and offering shoulders at their moments.

Those stories don’t make it to primetime, but they’re still whispered in alleyways and village courtyards.

It is from that memory — one of companionship, not conflict — that many Kashmiris reacted to the recent violence in Pahalgam. The killings were brutal and senseless. But........

© Kashmir Observer